


Seafarer's Tail

by Shujinkakusama



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cover Art, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mermaids, Other: See Story Notes, Pneumonia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8273914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shujinkakusama/pseuds/Shujinkakusama
Summary: Mermaids AU. Pearl doesn't know when to ignore her curiosity, even when that curiosity leads her into shark territory in pursuit of a mysterious shadow on the horizon. When that shadow turns out to be a human woman adrift at sea, what else can Pearl do but help her? / Pearlnet, fluff, inappropriate use of knives, magical transformation, sickness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> If you are squicked by blood and/or knives in use, probably don't read this one. Also pneumonia and acceptance of impending death.

 

Sailors weren’t typically fascinating.

 

Pearl had never found them such, anyway. They were lewd and loud and threw their unwanteds into her ocean. Their ships scraped along reefs and disrupted the currents her kind used to travel between colonies. They breathed air and overhunted the seas and were _disgusting._ Even sharks feared men.

Of course, she’d never met any sailors up close. Not before now. On a trip she knew not to make to the surface, Pearl had happened upon a raft—and against the several hundred years of wisdom Nacre had bestowed upon her, despite knowing songs and warnings and repeating them to babes, she traveled out of the shadows and up toward the molted light from the world above. Her sisters would chide her; Yellow would shriek that she would influence Blue badly.

 

If they ever knew.

 

Which they wouldn’t.

 

Her fluke beat against the water’s current, and Pearl remembered many tides ago, tales of what had happened to her lost lover—only whispers, of course, rumors from sculpin and minnows, where she’d gotten caught looking at sailors—trapped in a woven net and dragged above the cresting waves. Pearl surfaced with a gasp, taking in too much air into barely-used lungs.

 

The sun was strong, and wide blue eyes squinted against the dryness of salty air as she made the mistake of staring directly into it. The mermaid hissed, spit water and ducked back beneath a wave, glimpsing a dark something on the horizon that shouldn’t be there. The surface was terrible. The world above was hot and uncomfortable, too dry, too _oxygenated_. Back beneath the water, Pearl expelled bubbles forcefully through her nose and sucked sea water back in to soothe the burn in her chest.

 

What _had_ that dark something been, though?

 

Pearl was many things, and her greatest sin was likely her boundless curiosity. Once sunspots stopped dancing across her vision, she turned toward the direction of the Dark Something. Underwater, she couldn’t see anything amiss; but that didn’t mean something _wasn’t_.

 

The mermaid gripped the shell dagger at her side, then took off toward the nearest current, intent on finding out who—or what—had piqued her interest.

 

She doubted it was a sailor. It never was.

 

It couldn’t possibly be Rose, either.

 

For once, Pearl wasn’t entirely wrong; it wasn’t Rose Quartz, and it wasn’t a ship.

 

But there was a sailor.

 

Pearl darted away from the raft, eyed the hand that dangled off the edge warily. Five fingers, not unlike hers, were present—the hand was marred by a jagged red scar across the palm, and Pearl wondered first if humans often damaged their hands by sailing. She flitted about, just out of reach, uncertain, but with curiosity that was in no way satiated by just _looking._

 

This had been a terrible idea. She’d get herself killed.

 

The mermaid turned to flee, but stopped short. Forked ears flickered, and wide eyes cast about the darker water.

 

Shark territory.

 

She couldn’t leave the sailor here.

 

With an affronted exhale of bubbles and brine, Pearl turned back toward the raft. At the very least, the sailor’s limbs couldn’t be exposed. Sailors were fool-hearted, fleshy little things, and the sharks in these waters were scavengers first and foremost, with poor eyesight and a knack for attacking things that didn’t remotely look like seals. Merfolk and mammals alike were at risk in cold, open water, and a sailor couldn’t possibly fare better.

 

Pearl nudged the sailor’s hand hesitantly, just in case, and was met with little resistance. Her first thought was that, perhaps, they were dead—that would solve all her problems, save one, and it would answer her questions if nothing else. She could go home dissatisfied.

 

But she steeled her nerves and broke the surface again, only to be met by eyes that were decidedly bright, despite gaunt cheeks and a vivid sunburn on darker skin than Pearl had ever seen among her kind. Torn clothing, wild hair, and a frame that dwarfed hers greeted her, an arm dangling off the side of the raft. Mismatched brown and blue eyes stared into her own, and for a precious handful of seconds, Pearl forgot to breathe.

 

She’d never heard of a _lady_ sailor.

 

Then again, she hadn’t heard of sailors that traveled alone.

 

It must be a trap.

 

Pearl broke her gaze almost sheepishly, pushed her too-cold hand back up onto the raft, and moved to go without a word. She backpedaled in the water, unused to treading in place with her hands.

 

Then the sailor spoke, and Pearl wondered if Rose Quartz had been so easily ensnared.

 

“Please don’t go…”

 

Pearl froze. The sailor’s voice was small, heavy with exhaustion, and somewhat defeated—but rich in a way that filled her slight chest with warmth she hadn’t felt in centuries.

 

“You speak our tongue,” Pearl managed, and her voice sounded wrong to her ears, but she knew that it was the air’s fault. Sound carried better under water.

 

The sailor nodded faintly, looking uncertain, and Pearl edged closer, finally daring to grip the edge of the wooden raft herself, one hand still wound around the hilt of her knife, carefully kept beneath the water, out of sight. She blinked rapidly, peering up at the human woman for several seconds.

 

“This is shark territory,” the mermaid said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

 

Somehow, the sailor laughed, but it quickly fell into a series of coughs. She looked away. “I shouldn’t be a lot of things,” she said coarsely, swallowing dryness in her parched throat. “I’m Garnet. What’s your name?”

 

Impossibly wide blue eyes looked up at her, searching for something. Whatever she was looking for was quickly found, and she relaxed her left arm before extending her hand, touching Garnet’s too-dry skin with long, sticky fingers. “Pearl. Of the White Court.”

 

Garnet’s eyes flickered toward the ovular stone protruding from Pearl’s forehead—pristine and polished, but as much a part of her as her hair or fingernails. “It suits you,” she managed, closing her eyes briefly. “Are we far from land?”

 

“Leagues,” Pearl answered easily, drawing her hand away from Garnet’s cheek. “I’m not taking you to land.”

 

“I’m not welcome in my kingdom, anyway,” Garnet admitted, jolting a little as Pearl began to push her raft. She looked startled, but pleased, and managed to shift onto her side with some discomfort. “So… do I die out here?”

 

“Only if the sharks mistake you for food.”

 

Pearl supposed that, technically, squid and whales were also possibilities—but she’d never heard of orcas in this season, and most whales sang; she could sing back, warn the pod of her charge. They would surely change direction.

 

The kraken had no masters.

 

She decided to keep quiet about that.

 

The woman sighed, closing her eyes. “I appreciate the help, Pearl,” she murmured, “But short of a miracle, I’ll likely die on this raft. I’m out of water, have no food… You shouldn’t risk yourself.”

 

Somehow, while that _sounded_ logical, it felt like a spear through Pearl’s chest. She slapped the water so hard with her fluke that it hurt, pushing the raft just a little faster.

 

“Nonsense. You’re being dramatic. There’s water everywhere,” Pearl grunted, ducking her head under water to wet her eyes. She peeked back up at Garnet, whose beautiful mismatched eyes were still closed. “We’re literally surrounded by water.”

 

“I can’t drink it,” Garnet explained, “Salt water makes humans sick.”

 

Oh.

 

Pearl remembered tales of clear blue water that could barely sustain life. Salmon visited creeks and rivers to breed—she supposed it made sense that humans might prefer creek water to the ocean’s, being that they were backwards.

 

“No salt at all?”

 

“Don’t think so.”

 

Pearl pursed blue lips in thought at that, tirelessly pushing at the raft. Without a strong current to guide her, it was slow going. They fell into silence at length, and Pearl pressed onward for hours, long into the night.

 

Garnet hadn’t said anything more, hadn’t stirred, and Pearl reasoned that she must be sleeping. She didn’t do much of that, herself, not as an adult; adolescents and children still slept in the kelp forest, nearer to the shore than she would like, and they weren’t going there. Pearl knew better.

 

Still, she didn’t know what she would do _with_ Garnet. There weren’t many options. The moonlight cast a soft glow over her charge, made her dark hair shine like she belonged in the water, and Pearl soon realized that there was nothing for it.

 

There were rumors that humans could become mermaids under the right circumstances. Pearl had never believed those rumors, and she wished she’d listened to Magi telling them. She had never cried, never tasted her own blood, never done any of the magical things that Magi spoke of; she couldn’t produce magical tears, or make elixirs, or cast spells, or heal.

 

But she _wanted_ …

 

Bony fingers found Garnet’s shoulders instead, and the sailor tried to sit up when she shook her—for the first time, Pearl realized that, perhaps, being prone on the raft hadn’t been intentional at all. Garnet had almost no strength, and Pearl stopped swimming to push herself up onto the raft. The human woman tried to rise, and Pearl sat firmly behind her, carefully pushing her upright with her fins flat against bony arms.

 

“I have an idea,” Pearl said finally, and she squeaked when Garnet sagged bonelessly against her. That wasn’t the plan at all. That wasn’t what she’d _expected_ by any means. The human woman was dead weight against her side.

 

“Tell me?” Garnet asked, pressing her face against Pearl’s cool shoulder. “I like your voice.”

 

“It sounds awful in the air,” Pearl protested, running her fingers down Garnet’s arms, cool now that night had fallen, save for the areas exposed to the sun’s burning rays earlier. The mermaid swallowed hard. “I can… change you. I think. I’ve never done it.”

 

Garnet grunted. “Will I die if you fail?”

 

Pearl didn’t answer right away, but she found the woman’s hands and gripped them tightly. Her fingers shook, and Garnet knew the answer was yes.

 

The sailor smiled against her shoulder. “And if you succeed? What then?”

 

“I’ll drown you in my blood, and you’ll trade your legs for a fin like mine,” Pearl murmured shakily against curly hair. Garnet rubbed her face into her shoulder reassuringly. “We return to my pod and I introduce you to Nacre and my sisters. We’ll live forever, but you must never step foot on land again. In a sense, you’ll still die.”

 

“I die either way,” Garnet said faintly, curling tired fingers around Pearl’s smaller hands. The woman paused. “Your blood won’t attract the sharks?”

 

It would. Pearl frowned a little, wondering if all humans were so unconcerned about dying, or just the one she’d found herself drawn to. “I can fight sharks.”

 

There was that tired laugh again, but the wet cough didn’t follow this time. Up close, Pearl could hear the telltale rattle in Garnet’s lungs that belonged to a sickness her kind couldn’t contract. Garnet closed her beautiful eyes again, sighing wistfully. “I’ll try not to slow you down,” she said, “I’ve always loved the sea. ‘Specially at night.”

 

Pearl looked up at the full moon, eerily bright and unlike the sun in every way. She preferred the moon, too.

 

“It’s lovely from the kelp forest,” she murmured, gathering Garnet closer to enjoy the last of the sun’s warmth on her skin. That would soon be gone, she knew, and only if this worked right. If she failed…

 

“Pearl?”

 

“Yes?” the mermaid said almost too quickly, looking down at Garnet with wide eyes. She wondered whether her pallor was thanks to the moon’s blue light. A scarred hand reached for her cheek, and Pearl caught it. Her fingertips were cold when they met her skin.

 

“Let me kiss you?”

 

“ _What_?”

 

A crooked smile that could have broken her heart was Garnet’s response before she leaned up and inward. The woman stopped short, and Pearl wasn’t sure that it was because she didn’t have the strength to stretch higher, or if it was a courtesy.

 

Either way, Pearl found herself leaning down to meet her terribly chapped lips. It was brief, and strange; Pearl had never kissed anyone but her sisters before, and certainly not for longer than an instant. What she’d had with Rose had been different; far from chaste, but they had never kissed. Garnet’s lips were rough from too many days without food or water, but beneath that they were soft and plush and yielding, and Garnet’s long fingers tangled in Pearl’s short coral-pink hair to keep her from withdrawing.

 

Pearl didn’t need to breathe, but she knew the human woman did—especially when she broke away to cough fitfully. The fluttering in her chest and stomach were quickly forgotten, and Pearl wrapped her arms around Garnet’s shoulders, hauling her upright as she coughed harder and harder until—

 

“Is that _blood_?” Pearl asked, aghast, and Garnet quickly wiped her hand dry on her trousers. Something dark red and wet lingered in its place, and the human woman didn’t meet her eyes.

 

“I told you, I’d die anyway,” Garnet’s voice was small. “The pneumonia or dehydration—either way. If it didn’t work, I wanted… I mean, you’re beautiful. And I’m dying. I just thought it’d be nice…”

 

The mermaid stared for several long seconds, then pressed her face into Garnet’s hair. “There’ll be time for it later,” she mumbled, hiding her blue-flushed cheeks until she was reasonably certain that her own blood pooling beneath her skin and in her gills wouldn’t betray her embarrassment.

 

“You’re beautiful too, you realize,” Pearl blurted out, and Garnet chuckled weakly. It wasn’t something she’d heard before. Not for years. “I’ve never… We should hurry and get this over with. Get you changed. You’ll need your clothes off. The bottom.”

 

This had Garnet giggling, and Pearl wondered if the heat in her face and skin came from the _pneumonia_ as well. She didn’t know what it was, or how it worked, but it sounded like sickness. “I’ll need help,” she murmured, and Pearl nodded. She carefully laid Garnet down against the raft before leaping back into the water.

 

The sea welcomed her with a cool rush, icy water against skin that had started to go too dry in the night air. But there was little time to enjoy her native element, and she circled the raft, bobbing back up and clamoring onto the raft. Garnet’s shoes were long lost, and Pearl made short work of her torn trousers and belt, tugging the coarse material away with unsteady hands.

 

Curiosity got the better of her here, too. Legs—human legs, anyway—were something Pearl had never seen before. She ran her hands up over Garnet’s shins, firm against her fingers. Garnet pressed her knees together and swallowed hard.

 

“What are you—“

 

“Sorry!” Pearl squeaked, and this time there was no hiding the brilliant blue that flooded her face, not with the moonlight to illuminate her alabaster skin. “I’ve never—I was curious, and—“

 

She put her face in her hands, hiding her eyes, and to her immense surprise, she heard Garnet laugh.

 

“There’ll be time for it later, right?” Garnet teased, and Pearl could see her cheeks flushed as well. The implication went clear over the mermaid’s head.

 

“There won’t be,” she protested, “You’ll have a tail, like me.”

 

Garnet nodded, leaning back down against the raft. “Hope so.”

 

“You will,” Pearl said firmly, drawing her knife with some uncertainty. The polished shell surface shimmered in the moonlight, “Only if you want to. If you’ve changed your mind—”

 

“I’d like to spend forever with you, Pearl,” Garnet said, closing her eyes. “I think I’m ready.”

 

Blue eyes, dark with blown pupils, turned toward the moon, and Pearl caught herself praying to a goddess her people rarely spoke of. She gripped the handle of her knife, turned it over in her hands, and took a steadying breath so deep that it made her lightheaded.

 

And then she pitched forward, raised the blade high above her head, and struck.

 

The magic wasn’t instantaneous. In point of fact, the span of minutes that passed between Pearl’s initial strike—deep in Garnet’s ribs, into lungs already filled with mucus and water—and the woman’s transformation felt much more like decades. Pearl was quick to slice open her arm, to direct her blood flow into Garnet’s lips as she gasped and gurgled. Her vision swam with the effort, and she wasn’t sure how much was needed, how much Garnet _could_ take before something happened.

 

Her gills went dry as Garnet struggled against the liquid in her lungs, and Pearl leaned down one more time just in case—just to be sure—and kissed her much harder than she had before. Her blood mingled with Garnet’s and she could taste both on her lips, tangy and metallic and full of life, and Pearl was certain for several long seconds that she’d done the wrong thing, that the stories were just that, and that she had just unceremoniously killed the poor human woman over a stupid fairytale intended for guppies at bedtime—

 

And then Garnet began to change.

 

Awash in moonlight, her entire body began to glow where Pearl’s blood had stained her shirt and skin. Pearl drew back with a ragged gasp, eyes damp and wide, and something, some instinct, almost like a voice in her forked ear, told her to pull Garnet under to complete the process. She hooked a bony arm around the woman’s elbow and dove into the ocean without a second thought.

 

Pearl didn’t dare look, and neither did she look back as she abandoned the raft and fled to safer water. The light washed away with her blood, and Pearl was afraid to look, to see how Garnet might have reformed behind her.

 

When Garnet’s arm slipped from her grip, however, Pearl whirled around—and to her immense surprise, the woman had changed completely, from head to—

 

To tail.

 

Her dark hair had changed to a wild shock of pink and blue, and her eyes, too, had changed to match; long legs were gone, replaced with a thick fin that spread into a brilliant fluke, split pink and blue down the middle, with a few patches of opposite-spectrum scales on either side. Pearl stared, mouth agape, and the last of the air in her lungs escaped in a rush of bubbles.

 

“It worked!” Pearl exclaimed, ignoring the sting in her left wrist as she threw her arms around Garnet’s shoulders, hugging her with exuberance she hadn’t felt in centuries. Garnet’s arms found her waist, and Pearl’s fin wound around Garnet’s all too easily, as if she’d always meant to be there. “Garnet, it worked!”

 

“I noticed,” Garnet managed around a mouthful of stale bubbles. Pearl giggled, cupping her face in her hands, and kissed her cheeks and nose with glee.

 

Where scars had been, Garnet now had brilliant shimmering purple scales, on her hands, forehead, and—more notably—where Pearl had stabbed her. The bigger woman—bigger _mermaid_ now—pulled back just slightly to detangle Pearl’s left hand from her hair. “Let me see your arm,” she said, and Pearl did. Blue blood was trailing from the wound, but it didn’t look deep. Not that Pearl had much flesh to stab.

 

“Are we still in shark-infested water?” Garnet asked, meeting Pearl’s eyes worriedly. The much older creature looked briefly confused.

 

“It’s their territory,” she explained, “I wouldn’t call it ‘infested’.”

 

“We should still probably get out of it,” Garnet said gently, leaning down to nuzzle just above Pearl’s gills, where her jaw and neck met. “You said I could meet your sisters?”

 

“Oh aqua,” Pearl murmured, canting her head to encourage Garnet’s newfound show of affection. As thanks, Garnet pressed soft kisses against Pearl’s skin. She let out a sweet sigh, eyes fluttering closed for a moment before she had the sense to pull away. “Nacre will have my head for this. Yellow, too, she’ll… well, she’ll complain. Blue will _look_ at me when nobody’s looking. But mother—“

 

“I get to meet your mother?” Garnet asked, sounding surprised, but pleased.

 

“Nacre, yes, she mothered most of us,” Pearl tried to explain, linking arms with Garnet and tugging her toward more familiar waters. “She’ll be very cross, I’m not supposed to leave the water, and—“

 

“Pearl, I’ll take the blame,” Garnet offered, struggling somewhat to keep up. Instinct told her to kick with legs she didn’t have, and mimicking Pearl’s s-wriggle was difficult at best. She wanted to swish side-to-side, not up-and-down.

 

The pink-haired mermaid shook her head stubbornly, gripping Garnet’s hand tightly. “You’re my responsibility now,” she said, but she smiled sweetly, and Garnet suspected that Nacre’s anger was less dangerous than she’d initially made it sound. “I’ll take care of you from now on. Forever.”

 


End file.
